Luz María Núñez Pleads “Not Guilty”

By Antonio De Jesús Aguado

Luz María Núñez

The local administration filled three criminal complaints against former mayor Luz María Núñez and her administration, and after two years of silence, Núñez has responded to those accusations and pleaded “not guilty,” commenting that the criminal complaints did not even succeed, and one of those was cancelled five days later and was only used as a media campaign to discredit her among the population. She has also filed criminal complaints against Mayor Mauricio Trejo.

In 2012, after Mayor Trejo was sworn in, he filed the first criminal complaint against Luz María Núñez Flores and her administration for alleged abuse of power, embezzlement, and fraud. The embezzlement charge included the contracts that her administration had with the local radio station XESQ (owned by her husband); the local administration never revealed the amount but Javier Zavala, director of the radio station, told Atención that the amount was not more than 1.5 million pesos in three years. The complaints also included the misuse of the public budget.

In the press conference, Núñez stated that since the first day of the 2012-2015 administration, a media campaign against her and her administration started, and also claimed that Mayor Trejo, without proof, accused that she was guilty of those crimes and that, she highlighted “is a moral damage that I cannot accept.” In the first complaint she was accused of illegal enrichment for hiring her husband’s radio station for promoting the administration works. One and a half months ago, she said that the Órgano de Fiscaliación Superior, OFS, (Superior Auditing Organ) informed her that there are no criminal or civil liabilities for using her husband’s radio station, which had been promoting the local administrations for 50 years. “My administration is clean,” said Núñez, who also commented that the accusations are fictional and are made in order to cover the bad works of the mayor’s administration.

There was a second criminal complaint against her for the misuse of public budget. Núñez made it clear that when she was sworn in, the 2006-2009 administration gave her money for transitional expenses but never gave her money for a public ceremony for taking the office, and for that reason they took it from transitional expenses. However, the OFS informed them that it was not right, and that is why, in September 2009, Núñez gave back to the municipal treasury, from her own money, 121,837.90 pesos. As a result, the second criminal complaint did not prosper, and Núñez proved that it was cancelled five days later by the assistant mayor José Luis Chagoyán, claiming that is the modus operandi of this administration — they file the criminal complaints, promote them in the media, and later they cancel them, “but the damage has had its effects,” she said.

The former mayor argued that she has nothing to be ashamed of or to regret and that discrediting her or her administration does not scare her because she is a brave woman and that just gives her strength to keep working in favor of those most in need. “History will judge and will put everyone in their place,” she noted. Finally, she said that there is a prosecution’s investigation file that includes five criminal complaints against Mayor Mauricio Trejo for tagging the façade of the radio station and also her house with threats of death and sexual attacks against her daughters. She also accused Mayor Trejo of theft of the statue of Manuel Zavavala, which was located on Sollano in front of XESQ.